Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Obesity, through its complications, influences the functional and vital prognosis. The search for these complications constitutes a major axis of the management of the obese patient, independently of the weight loss. The objective of this work is to focus on the different complications of obesity and to identify, through a comparative study between two groups of obese patients, complicated versus uncomplicated, the different predictive factors of the occurrence of these different complications, especially arterial hypertension and cardiovascular complications.

Patients and methods: This is a retrospective comparative study of 400 obese patients, hospitalized and followed in the endocrinology and diabetology department of the Hedi Chaker Hospital in Sfax. These patients were subdivided into 2 groups: G1: 264 patients with at least one complication of obesity and G2: 136 uncomplicated obese patients.

Results: The mean age of our complicated patients was significantly higher than that of the uncomplicated ones (46.29±17.377 years versus 33.97±12.08 years), (P = 0.0001). A significant female predominance was noted in our complicated and uncomplicated obese groups (P = 0.0001). 78.7% of group 1 and 86% of group 2 had a family history of obesity (P = 0.05). Anthropometric parameters (weight, BMI, waist circumference (WC) waist circumference/hip circumference (WC/TH) and systolic and diastolic blood pressure values were significantly higher in the complicated obese group. It was noted that high BMI positively influences the occurrence of hypertension, cardiovascular, respiratory and osteoarticular complications. In addition, high waist circumference was significantly involved in the development of hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and cardiovascular, respiratory, skin and osteoarticular complications. Lean body mass and fat mass are significantly higher in our complicated obese than in our uncomplicated obese. The saturated fatty acid (SFA) intake in% is significantly higher in uncomplicated obese patients. The comparison between G1 and G2 regarding metabolic parameters shows that these are higher in G1 than in G2. Only alanine aminotransferase (ALT or SGPT) was higher in G2 than in G1.

Conclusion: The knowledge of the factors influencing the occurrence of these complications could help us to better treat them but especially to better prevent them. The treatment of obesity and its complications is certainly a challenge for all health care providers today, but prevention is still the best way to fight against this burden.